Senior sports reporter with The Age

Heart is close enough to stage a revival, but at this stage that looks a way off. Photo: Getty Images

IT IS said that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Melbourne Heart might be on life support after its horror Christmas, but it is not dead yet.

But if the Melbourne club doesn't stage a New Year rally in its next two fixtures - at home to the Newcastle Jets on January 1 and Brisbane Roar five days later - then its season could be over after barely half the campaign.

The Heart was unlucky not to get anything out of the pre-Christmas derby clash with Melbourne Victory, losing to Archie Thompson's last-gasp winner in the third minute of stoppage time.

John Aloisi's side showed plenty of ticker to come back and level with less than 10 minutes to go and, if anything, looked the team most likely in those dying minutes before Thompson's dramatic strike.

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But it has no one to blame but itself for its 3-2 loss in Wellington on Thursday.

Having taken a two-goal lead inside 16 minutes, a point should have been the least it was prepared to return home with.

As Aloisi was honest enough to admit, however, the Phoenix did enough in the final hour of the game to be a deserved winner.

Alarm bells have to be ringing in the Heart camp after such a display. Even though Heart was missing its first-choice central defensive pairing through suspension, and Aloisi had opted not to bring in starting-11 players Richard Garcia and Aziz Behich, a loss in such circumstances must be morale-sapping.

The manner of the collapse from a position of such strength has to concern Aloisi, as Heart has looked brittle a number of times this year.

''They dominated us and deserved to win,'' the former Socceroos frontman said. ''They put us under pressure and we struggled.'' He cited Heart's inability to retain possession as a key reason for Wellington getting back into the game.

As he pointed out, with so many regulars missing it was a chance for some fringe players to impress. They failed to do so and the red and whites now find themselves up against it.

Heart goes into the next round of matches propping up the table, having won only three of 13 games so far this season.

The A-League's tightness means that no club is likely to be ruled out of finals contention until relatively late in the season, but the league table is starting to separate the contenders from the pretenders.

Heart is close enough to stage a revival, but at this stage that looks a way off.

The club will benefit from the return of Simon Colosimo and Patrick Gerhardt, suspended from the Wellington Phoenix match, and Behich and Garcia too, for the Newcastle game.

Golgol Mebrahtu will surely take some positives from the goal he scored, the second of the season.

But Heart simply has to make more of the opportunities it gets, and be tighter at the back, if it wants to stay in touch in the second half of the season.